This year, The Byrne Gallery celebrates its 29th anniversary and the 21st annual exhibition of Yuri Gorbachev’s fabulous paintings!
We are proud to celebrate the vivid oil and enamel paintings of the internationally acclaimed artist Yuri Gorbachev and the lenticular panels of Alexander Zakharov.
And, for the first time, Gorbachev collaborates with Zakharov in a unique, new painting medium created jointly by the two artists. He and Yuri have been friends for over 30 years, but this is the first collaborative show. They decided to have some fun and combine their different styles and themes for this Middleburg 2024 show.
This exhibition marks a pivotal moment in their artistic journeys, as both Gorbachev and Zakharov are celebrated for their intricate use of symbols and detail, yet their approaches to art are vastly different. Gorbachev, known for his vibrant, fairytale-like creations, draws from the folklore and pastoral charm of his rural upbringing in Russia. In contrast, Zakharov, a native of the bustling city, brings a surrealistic and theatrical edge to his work. Together, they are opposites in vision, yet their combined efforts have resulted in a harmonious and thought-provoking union.
Their collaboration, which melds Gorbachev’s luminous enamel and gold techniques with Zakharov’s surreal, fantastical narratives, is a first-of-its-kind experiment for both artists. While they have exhibited alongside one another a few times in the past, this is the inaugural occasion where they have merged their talents into a single artistic creation.
“This exhibition is more than just an artistic endeavor—it’s the fusion of two worldviews,” says Gorbachev. “Alex’s surrealism inspires me to add an element of mystery to my usually bright and joyful work.”
Zakharov adds, “I’ve drawn inspiration from Yuri’s use of gold and rich textures, creating something entirely new for both of us. The result is unexpected, even for us.”
Gorbachev says, “My favorite exhibition is in Middleburg.” He loves the natural scenery of the countryside and the warm friendships he has developed over these past two decades.
Please celebrate with him at the opening reception Saturday November 09th from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. The event is open to the public and everyone is cordially invited to attend. The Gallery will exhibit Yuri’s works from November 6th through December 31st.
More about Yuri Gorbachev:
Many local collectors may know that at the age of twenty-seven Yuri Gorbachev became a member of the prestigious Art Union of the former USSR. Since then, he has established himself as one of Russia’s most distinguished modern painters before he moved to New York in 1991. Yuri has been a proud and devoted US resident since 1991.
Inspired by the brilliant, jeweled colors of Byzantine art, the works of Faberge, and Russia’s Icon heritage, artist Yuri Gorbachev creates colorful, richly textured canvases in oil and gold leaf. His personally joyful and meditative artistic world combines memories of his Russian boyhood and the deep tradition of Russian Orthodox Icon painting. His art blends a radiant kaleidoscope of folk celebrations, street fairs, circuses, fairy tales, animals, snowy winter landscapes, and images of the Romanov dynasty.
Since 2011, Yuri’s whimsical paintings have illustrated both Absolut and Stolichnaya Vodka advertisements appearing in hundreds of magazines around the world. In 2010, the St. Petersburg Museum of Urban Art & Sculpture hosted a major exhibition of his work. Tens of thousands of Russians, especially young people, attended the exhibit and broke all attendance records for the museum. In 2011, The State Russian Museum, the most important museum of Russian art worldwide, accepted Gorbachev's major oil painting Tsar Nicholas and his Family into their Permanent Collection. Gorbachev's museum tour continued through 2015, with the National Gallery of Fine Art Plovdiv, Bulgaria; The Kumu Art Museum of Estonia and The Literature Museum of Odessa, Ukraine. Future exhibitions are scheduled for Major Museums in Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg and other European cities, including Helsinki and Monaco.
In both 2011 and 2012, Yuri Gorbachev had the honor of being commissioned to design a new label for Stolichnaya Red Vodka. The Gorbachev-designed label is derived from his painting Four Elements.
With over 50 years of exhibitions worldwide, Yuri has had more than 200 solo exhibitions. He estimates that over two billion people have seen his artwork. Yuri’s work hangs in the permanent collections of the Louvre, The Hermitage and several other Russian State Museums.
On a personal note, Yuri Gorbachev’s Mother lived in Saint Petersburg Russia, and maintained a family residence in Ukraine. Yuri still maintains a residence in Odessa, where he visited his mother until her death in 2021. Yuri became a US citizen in 1994 under a special 1991 “genius visa” program (EB-1) for individuals possessing extraordinary ability in the arts and sciences.
Yuri loves the Ukrainian people, and he cherishes his family memories. This year a portion of the sales from the exhibition will be donated to the families of Ukraine through The International Rescue Committee (IRC) for Ukrainian Refugees. This organization is consistently awarded top marks by charity watchdog groups for efficient use of contributions and overall impact.
More about Alexander Zakharov:
Alexander Zakharov masterfully translates narrative references of childhood and innocence onto large-scale, color stereo-panels. The process involves a complex and precise technology for color printing, yielding a three-dimensional effect. His technique demands expert manipulation throughout multi-stage color corrections to assure profound realism. The process is so unforgiving, that the slightest error can revert the entire artwork back to a mundane postcard-like result. Also, the larger the image, the more challenging the process.
Alexander’s work involves an array of diverse large-sized pieces, crafted primarily with mixed media and lenticular panels – special plastic sheets having tiny ridges or “lenticules” that refract light to yield a changeable 3D effect.
“I employ a variety of techniques to transfer parts of the image onto canvas, including traditional methods and digital printing. My toolkit comprises an airbrush, engraving tools, stencils, textured acrylic paints, and transparent pastes, alongside acrylic varnishes that add depth and vibrancy to my works. In some pieces, I incorporate colored, gold, and silver markers, as well as artificial and natural gold leaves and crystals. This eclectic mix enhances the visual appeal and allows each artwork to evolve visually; wherein new details emerge, and previous elements may fade,” according to Zakharov.
Alexander Zakharov was born in Moscow in 1960. He graduated from the Moscow College of Art and was immediately inducted into the Moscow Artists Union (1982). In 1991, he received a major grant from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation (NYC) and in 1996-1997 he became an Artist in Residence with the Brandywine Workshop (Philadelphia, PA) and won First Prize from the Society of Illustrators, New York Times.
He was admitted to membership in The Print Club of New York (1997), the International Federation of Artists (2006), and later in 2012 into the Professional Association of Visual Artists in Berlin (Berlin BBK).
Alexander Zakharov has shown in numerous museum and public collections: New York Public Library, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum (Rutgers University), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The State Pushkin Museum (Moscow), the Museum of Imagination (Hudson, NY), The State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the United Nations (NYC), Duke University Museum of Art (Durham, NC), The Portland Museum of Art, the Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art (Highland Park, NJ), the C.A.S.E. Museum (New Jersey), The Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University.
He is in the private collection of Jillian Anderson, Sir Otto Bismark, David Bowie, Peter Brabek-Letmathe, Nicolas Cage, Jean Deleage, Norton and Nancy Dodge, Deirdre Imus, Whoopi Goldberg, Leslie Glass, Anne Hech, Mary Litterman, Patrick Mimran, Horst Rechelbacher, Marianna and Rashid Sardarov, Sir Oliver Stone, Barbro Schauman, Sir Harry Woolf, Paul Weitz, and Keith Yoo.